The Internet Has a Growing Carbon Footprint That Could Become as Large as That of the Transportation Sector

November 16, 2018 – Today my wife sent me a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) news article entitled “Your smartphone is burning a lot of carbon.” The posting expressed surprise at just how large the carbon footprint is of information and communication technology (ICT). My response to this is how could you not know that an enormous amount of energy and resources are tied up in telecommunications infrastructure, the applications, and devices we use to access Internet cloud-based information, and the massive data servers that make it all possible.

The article refers to a study out of Hamilton’s McMaster University entitled “Assessing ICT Global Emissions Footprint: Trends to 2040 & Recommendations.” The authors, Associate Professor Lotfi Belkhir, and his colleague Ahmed Elmeligi, of the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology, at McMaster, describe how ICT devices and services have become central to our lives today. They go on to note that while the world population has doubled in 50 years, consumption of electronic devices has grown 600%.

Where smartphones and cloud computing have created teleworkers who connect with video conferencing and commonly shared workspaces on the Internet, we have lost sight of just how much this ICT technology is drawing on the natural resources of the planet and contributing to rising greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s not just the rare earth metals that have to be mined to create smartphones that contribute to emissions, but also the electricity demand from the constantly expanding data centres needed to facilitate Internet traffic from watching online videos to e-commerce transactions. Where does ICT fit into the contributing to global emissions mix?

In 2015 based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reporting, ICT contributed to 8% of worldwide emissions, behind power generation at 29%, transportation, 27%, industry, 21%, commercial and residential, 12%, and agriculture, 9%. That 8%, projected to grow to 14% by 2040, did not include the manufacturing contribution for computers, data servers, networking equipment, smartphones, and other electronic Internet-connected devices.

The authors cite previous studies on ICT’s carbon footprint that estimate the industry’s emissions to reach as much as 1.1 Gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2020. Another study referred to by the authors of the paper projects ICT’s carbon contribution to grow to 21% by 2030 which is much greater than the 14% and 2040 estimate.

The McMaster study further states that the carbon footprint of smartphones will exceed the emission contribution of desktops, laptops, and other electronic displays combined by 2020. Why is this? Because we are addicted to smartphones globally. On average users switch to a new model every two to three years because the industry constantly floods the market with new models. That means we are drawing on the resources of the planet in unprecedented fashion to feed our addiction.

A typical smartphone contains graphite, silicon, indium tin oxide, copper, gold, platinum, silver, tungsten, zinc, in fact, 62 different metals including Rare Earth metals. Names like neodymium, terbium, and dysprosium are among the latter. They are used to make your phone vibrate or ring and are used to produce the colourful phone displays.

Rare Earth metals is a misnomer. Many aren’t that rare but it is where they are found and the quantities that add significantly to the resource extraction emission contribution. When taken into account suddenly the ICT carbon footprint grows dramatically.

There are better processes and behaviours which can be adopted to keep the ICT carbon footprint under control. One thing that would help would be not to change smartphones every two to three years. Those service provider contracts and the offer of a new phone upgrade are all bad for the environment. Second, we need the infrastructure that makes the Internet possible to become much greener. That means data centres need to get their energy from renewable sources. And finally, we need consumers to understand the cost of watching all those YouTube cat videos. Every time you download one of these inane distractions you are adding to the carbon footprint for the pleasure of a somewhat irrelevant distraction.

Professor Belkhir is quoted in the CBC posting stating, “maybe going with friends to the movies and watching a movie there on the big screen is actually more environmentally friendly than each one of them watching it on their smartphones.”